I usually end up confessing my most personal story to taxi drivers all over the world; sometimes they tell me theirs. In Jerusalem, an older man named Ruvin picked me up on Emek Refaim. “You live back there, eh? Emek Refaim?” he asked, squinting in the rearview mirror. “Very nice,” he rasped. He was bald, powerfully built. He chopped his speech with pregnant pauses and startling bellows that had him rubbing his triceps afterwards to cool down. “You know, I make good money before. Long time ago. Long time ago.” At a light, he thrust the car forward beside another taxi and rolled down his window and mine, jerking his thumb at me saying, “This one lives on Emek Refaim.” The other driver squinted back at me and said slowly, “I have my gun. Maybe I should kidnap you?” They guffawed, the light changed, and Ruvin continued with a long sigh, “Yes, I live in Paris. Good money. I went to Normandy for vacation. It was nice out of Jerusalem, for short time. I met woman. Old. Very strong.” He tensed his biceps and made fists, tossing his head like a bull. “Very strong! You understand, eh? Not beautiful.” He wagged a finger. “Very … strong!” He pumped his fists harder, then stroked his arm. “I made love to her. She ask me work for her. Come to Paris. She was madam. I go to hotel. Collect money. Every day. I muscle, yeah. Someone don’t want pay, I come, they pay. For my birthday, she say me, ‘Choose a girl.’ Ah, Alphonse!” He closed his eyes and shook his head, scraping his stubble with his palm so his lips hung loose. He was almost crying as we passed the Israel Museum with its white Shrine of the Book shaped like a breast. “And now I here again,” he said as he let me out, squeezing his arm and barely listening as I told him to keep the change.
